Where the building is not.

Material Un-Presence and the Promise of Another City

VAS² 2026 takes place in the former laundry hall of Sandleitenhof, often described as the largest public housing estate from the Red Vienna period. While this superlative may not be incorrect, it reduces the Hof to the scale of the whole and overlooks the depth of its distinctive features.

   A column is missing.

Irritations, irregularities and significant trivialities will catch our attention. We will not look at what has been built but rather search for where the building is not. Spots where matter was taken away or left out on purpose. Material un-presence as an index of deliberate design decisions made 100 years ago.

   The excavated pool is quite long.

After the fall of the Monarchy, Vienna was intended to transform from the stabilising centre of a dynastic Empire into a radical prototype of urban welfare. Its municipal housing programme, in particular, held the promise of a different city.

   A doorway connects the living room with a grocery store.

The workshop approaches its site as a material archive whose social and political histories survive unevenly within the built fabric. By deep reading the architecture of Sandleitenhof through original drawings, forensic walks, and performative measurements, we will focus on singular spatial fragments—not as isolated formal details, but as condensed traces of broader social imaginaries. Through the close examination of what has intentionally been left empty, the workshop seeks to unravel the multilayered and ambiguous aspirations embedded within the design of the Hof and to question the contemporary value of these unbuilt promises.


Jerome Becker does research on housing at the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven in Brussels and co-directs MAGAZIN, an independent exhibition space for contemporary architecture in Vienna. Alongside editorial work for projects like ADATO and dérive, he has been co-organising the Vienna Architecture Summer School since its founding in 2022. 
https://architektur-im-magazin.at/

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